


And He Asked If I Was Fine

by crowleyshouseplant (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Communication, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:05:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2472596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Benny meet and it's great, but sometimes it's hard to say things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And He Asked If I Was Fine

Dean began his mornings with a cup of black coffee. He’d go to this little cafe, one by the ocean. They served breakfast, boasting that their fish was always just caught, fresh from the sea.

Dean carefully closed his eyes whenever he thought about someone catching those fit, gutting those fish—and drank coffee to wash the dried up feeling that clung to his throat down.

He rarely ate there though, fresh fish or no, choosing instead to stick with his black coffee, sometimes surprising himself with pouring half n half—luxuries really. He remembered the crap he drank when he’d been on the road with his dad, the garbage Dad brewed when he was home for once.

But this was nothing like this.

This was—

He closed his eyes, inhaling the steam, the roast, and exhaling slowly out.

There weren’t words, no not really.

He wrote while he drank his coffee. The image had stuck with him, stronger than a Kerouac wandering the roads because he knew how to do that, had been dragged by his short hair from the ends of the States and back again, so the image of someone having a favorite coffee shop, of people who knew his order if not his name—

That meant something.

Sometimes he surprised them—he’d order something fanciful—something sugary and indulgent.

But they knew what it meant. “Made your deadline, huh honey?” one of them drawled, handing him the order, a size larger than what he had asked for, a tiny smidgen more of whipped cream that he had allowed himself drizzled in chocolate syrup.

He knew they meant well but he wished that they—still, they meant well, all that mattered in the end, right?

"Yeah," he said, smiling as he took it. "Second novel all done."

"One day," she said, "you’re going to break your secret and let us all know who you are mister big author guy."

He laughed. He’d never tell. 

He didn’t know what they’d do if he knew what he wrote. 

Science Fiction was cool, obviously, but he never did know how people would react when they found out he also wrote paranormal romance for young adults.

But where else would you find stories about a boy loving a boy?

So he wrote them and strangers read them and loved them and loved him.

And it was on just such an occasion as this that Dean met Benny for the first time. 

It was fall on the cusp of winter, when the sun was still warm but the air crisp and chill, a hint and promise of the cold to come, the wind pulling at coats and hair, nipping the tips of fingers and ears until they were numb—

and he had just finished warming up from the chill of his walk in the warm ambience of the cafe, still drinking his sugared confection of a coffee, when the air blew in with a sheet of rain, and he strode through, burly in a big coat and a thick beard, smelling vaguely of salt and fish.

He stamped his finger, rubbing his palms together, cheeks nipped a bright red. 

Dean’s eyes fell to the man’s boots. Saw the stained water on the thick rubber, the bits of meats clinging to the soles.

This was the man who caught and killed the fish that was served fresh, fresh, fresh every day.

He knew.

Could see it in the way he held himself.

He put the cup down so it clinked gently against the saucer.

The staff were shouting at the man. What did he want? What did he need?

Just something hot in a cup. Anything. Maybe a cider if they had it.

Dean had always wanted to try the cider, but was going to wait—until Halloween or Thanksgiving or some time special.

He didn’t even realize until the man hovered beside the chair opposite him that there were no other empty seats in the room besides the other one at his table.

"Do you mind?" he asked, smiling a little behind his beard, cup of cider steaming and hot.

Dean shook his head. No. Of course not. Please, sit. Hello, sailor.

The man’s name was Benny.

They made arrangements to meet for coffee again in a few days.

Then they made plans again.

Then they made plans to do other things beside coffee. Movies. Hiking. Chilling in a bar while they watched the game over a cold one, which wasn’t always Dean’s cup of tea, but he liked watching Benny, the easy way he rolled with the plays, laughing with the wins, slapping his thigh and saying maybe next time, maybe next time with that slow, lazy smile, raising his near empty bottle in toast no matter if they won or lost or if they ended up leaving before the game was through.

Dad always got so competitive and angry during the games. Why didn’t they win. Why didn’t they try hard enough.

Those sons of bitches.

He always lost so much money in the bars, making the wrong bet on a losing team.

Those assholes, Dad spit in his beer. Like it was their fault, a personal insult.

Dean made himself scarce on those nights but sometimes it wasn’t scarce enough.

But it wasn’t like that with Benny. He didn’t bet, he didn’t yell. He rooted for the same team, no matter if they were on a losing streak or a winning streak.

And then Dean found himself inviting Benny over for his book launch. And Benny didn’t laugh when he found out Dean’s genre, didn’t nudge-nudge, wink-wink what a good joke lol okay—but he just wrapped him up in one of those bear hugs and told him how glad he was of Dean’s success and asked if he’d be alright if he read one of his works and Dean said of course because he couldn’t imagine Benny using it against him to demonstrate that he wasn’t as good as he should be, as much of a man as he should be

Dean still remembered the first time Benny invited him over to his house. He cooked for him, wore a pink-lace rimmed apron, and made the best blueberry muffins.

It was only after they had kissed lazily on the couch that Benny had admitted the muffins were actually from a box but Dean didn’t care because good was good.

When they went on their dates, they went dutch because that made the most sense. They weren’t going steady—and how high school was that? for Dean who had never gone to high school, homeschooled all the way through on the road he hadn’t even realized until Charlie had gently ribbed him for using the term—until they were, until they had sat themselves down over some coffee and they talked about who they were, what they were to each other and when they were done Dean was blushing because goddamn he was in love so in love—

and it was great. Even when Benny started paying for some of their dates. “You don’t have to,” Dean would say, weird gnawing sensation in his belly.

I know, Benny would say back, but I want to.

And Dean would let it go because if Benny wanted to, then he wanted to, and that was fair, wasn’t it? 

Dean drummed his finger nervously against the table when Benny payed for coffee, laying dibs to pay for the next dinner or sliding his card first on their next coffee date.

They never fought at the register, each one pushing the other out of the way. 

But it was still.

Dean thought about it at night, sheets tangled at his waist, twisted around his legs, palms cradling his head as his eyes fixated on the ceiling and the whorling shapes in the paint. 

I don’t owe you anything, Dad had said. I fed you. Gave you a roof. What more do you want from me. I don’t owe you shit. If anything, you owe me, and you treat your old man this way. Thought I raised you better than that, boy.

It was hard to argue with facts.

"Don’t do that," Dean said. 

Benny raised his eyes, stopping the steady stream of cream because he liked his coffee with more milk than coffee and Dean just didn’t get that at all.

"Do what?"

The words stuck on his tongue. Dean washed them down with a scalding gulp of coffee. “Nothing.”

"Okay." And Benny kept pouring and then he paid before Dean even noticed so Dean left the tip in cash and it was supposed to be fair, half and half, but it wasn’t, and it stuck like a burr in his throat, scratchy and painful and awful.

They went to the grocery store after. Benny asked him what kind of milk he wanted. Soy or regular. “What does it matter,” he said.

"So that it won’t go bad before you drink it. Lord knows I don’t need it."

Because Benny was a vampire (and don’t think that Dean missed the irony because he didn’t he’d been raised by hunters who hunted all kinds of monsters and yet here he was because even though Benny might be a vampire he knew he wasn’t a monster and it was like he was living in a story, one he wrote himself and it made him nervous and giddy and scared because why just because) and technically he didn’t need any of the food they bought on their dates and didn’t need the coffee they drank because caffeine had no effect and Dean needed it to start his batteries like the energizer pink bunny and wow was that not fair.

"You’re gonna pay for it anyway so why does it matter?" Dean said. "Just get whatever the fuck you want."

Benny bit his lip a little like he wasn’t sure what to say or he was considering or reckoning or something. “What’s eating you, Dean?”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut, trying to forget about that burr in his throat because he was just imagining it it didn’t matter, freaking out, being an anxiety ridden asshole. “You are,” he said even though that wasn’t true because Benny never took him up on it when he offered and what was up with that huh what the fuck was up with that and he half expected Benny to come back with a sexual innuendo but he never did because Benny wasn’t like that, just stared at him a little before asking if he wanted to shop tomorrow instead.

Dean shook his head, walked a little in front with his hands in his pocket. “No. Let’s just. We’re already here let’s just get what we need.”

He didn’t wait for Benny to ask him what he wanted, he didn’t care, he didn’t goddamn care, and he heard the soft thump as Benny pulled something from the shelf and Dean wandered in circles in front of Benny’s cart and he just kept going slow through the list, getting whatever, though sometimes it felt like he was just getting what he knew or thought or guessed Dean would want and that was frustrating because next thing you knew Benny would open the fridge and see all of Dean’s shit squatting on the shelves and say something like what the fuck was this that he needed all this shit for himself.

So Dean grabbed the candies that he knew Benny liked to suck on, the lemon drops the kind that Dean couldn’t stand too sour, made his mouth pucker too much. 

Dean stuck himself in front of the cart and paid and they packed the groceries up without saying much and it was awkward and awful like not even back when they knew each other did the air feel like cardboard between them and they put the groceries away and Benny said he was going out for a walk.

Dean put the groceries away, feet bare against his plush carpet. He wandered, looking at the pictures on his wall. A snapshot of him and Sam back when they saw each other often. God, they’d spent every summer with each other and Dad resented every second, amazing he hadn’t gunned after Sam too when he went—

Dean turned away, hands shivering a little against his thighs.

The doorbell rang, and when Dean peaked through the peephole there was Benny, standing patiently on the door step and Dean rolled his eyes as he opened the door and let Benny come in, carrying two styrofoam cups of gas station coffee, the cheap kind, the kind that Dean could guzzle down because nothing was as terrible and good as cheap as crap gas station coffee.

"Got us something," Benny said. "Got struck with a thirst and thought you might want one too. If you don’t, that’s fine."

Dean took it. “Thanks, man,” he said. “How much do I owe you?”

Benny looked at him, then, really looked at him so that Dean had to cast his glance away to some corner with some chipped paint he’d been meaning to fix.

"You don’t owe me nothing, Dean."

Dean sucked in a breath because everybody always said that until they changed their mind. “C’mon, man,” he said.

Benny sighed. “It was two bucks.”

Dean took a sip. It was still hot. Still so bad it was good. “Thanks,” he said because it hit the spot, it really did.

Benny put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”


End file.
